are pills for your brain worth it?

so i read an article today about this drug called provigil. it was an opinion article about one guy's own experimentation about it and his results. he took it 5 days on and 3 days off and worked totally focused and ate a ton less. he didn't sleep much but he said that was because he was so focused he couldn't stop thinking.

there are no known short-term effects on the drug but no long-term studies have been done on it. in the end the guy stopped taking it because he didn't know the long term effects and thought it's stupid for you to risk something like dementia on short term results.

personally i've used 3 drugs to help with my focus/concentration: caffeine, nicotine and ginko biloba. i used the first two through college, and when i wised up last year, i started taking ginko and have been taking it ever since.

those of you that know me know that i have bad attention deficit disorder. throughout high school and college i used caffeine to help me, but whenever i used it i lose sleep, gain weight(even using diet pop), have slow recovery time from working out and am more stressed than usual. sure, when i can only get 3-5 hours of sleep a night, i use it, but i do it as little as possible.

i could've taken aderol(sp?) but i always told myself i could get what i want accomplished without it, i just had to work harder. who knows what that shit will do to you long-term.

i started taking ginko because it's been used for centuries to help your brain. because of how cheap it is and because it doesn't have fda approval i don't think people give it the recognition it deserves. it was the first thing that gave me focus without side effects.

it took about 2 weeks for me to notice results(average is a month)and i have to take it everyday to have focus the next day, but ginko is a time-tested drug that works and doesn't harm. i'm sure it doesn't help as much as something like aderol or provigil but i'm ok with that. it works just good enough for me to balance my add and feel like a normal person. if i didn't have add i think i would still take it.

personally i feel taking drugs like provigil are a way of cheating yourself. an american quick fix for laziness. i have to work harder and smarter to get where i want to be without taking those drugs, but i'm ok with that.

check out the guy's article here: www.johannhari.com